I'm sure glad the new sail fabrics don't need to be gradually
stretched out with a series of gentle day sails. Sunday I came
fairly close to getting beaten up by a lousy local frontal passage
when I was just trying to admire my new sails. In the harbor it was
not really wild, a little gusty, so I just tied in one reef and left
the buoy with 3/4 of the jib showing. My blasted Irish hat blew
overboard as soon as I passed the ferry moorings and that gust
actually put the lee rail to (but not under) water. Good grief.
Anyway, by that time I figured it would be easier to go ahead and
clear the harbor and get the boat self steering before reefing
further. Not necessarily the correct conclusion, but I've been
getting pretty confident in the Vega lately. It was visibly rough
outside before I passed the right hand shoal and could come up on the
wind (southeasterly)and put the windvane to work. With the main just
luffing a bit (one reef) she was plunging quite hard into it and
bringing a lot of water on deck so I went downstairs and put on foul
weather gear and harness before going forward. . .just as well.
However, the view out the companion as I climbed back on deck was a
bit startling. . .lee rail and racing foam at face level. . .and the
boat was really bucking quite hard in the short breaking chop.
Anyway, I got on deck and got back to work. The new full length
battens in the top third of the main greatly reduced the sound and
fury of flogging when I slacked things off to put in the second reef
and the new rigging worked quite well. I used the halyard winch to
get a little extra on the reef pendant, coiled up and scooted back to
the cockpit to sheet in. Dang. We were still overpowered, heeling
more than I like and going quite hard through the water, probably
over 6 kn but I didn't get out the gps to see (knotmeter isn't
working just now). I rolled up about half the jib and admired the
effect of the foam filled luff. Still had a small wrinkle in the
bottom half of the sail though. . .I wonder if the forestay is too
slack? H'mm. Things to learn. At that point, two reefs and half
the jib more or less, we were a bit over powered but making really
quick way through the water upwind, being pushed around a good bit by
the chop. We don't really get "seas" in Puget Sound, but the chop
was pretty big. . .I'd guess perhaps 4' or a bit more on
average. . .with all the tops breaking at least a little and some
pretty vigorously.
And now the point of the story. I ordered 3 reefs and the new sail
came with them but they were positioned a little differently from my
old sail and I had to replace the longest reefing pendant and move
the other two each one step outboard. . .ergo, had to discard the
first pendant, put the second one in that hole, and the third pendant
into the second hole and I HADN'T YET ROVE OFF THE NEW 3RD. Hadn't
actually bought it in fact. Dang.
I learned several things for the next hour more or less. . .brought
way more water aboard than I ever had before, undoubtedly went a good
deal faster in the boat than ever before, decided I did NOT like beam
reaching when that badly over canvassed, so sailed about 70 degrees
off the wind on the outbound leg going really fast and slopping
occasional wave tops clear over onto the cabin top, though nothing
real came in the cockpit (you people who have filled the cockpit and
just enjoyed the day amaze me. . .I'd have been terrified I don't
doubt). Within about 40 minutes of reefing I concluded there was too
good a chance of bending, breaking or ripping something expensive or
ruining my own self image, so I tacked her around ALL THE WAY THROUGH
140 DEGREES. . .we had enough way on she never hesitated though we
hit a couple of waves pretty hard as we swung through the wind. I
kept the jib aback and let her jog along hove to for a minute and it
was delightful as usual. . .though we were still making a lot of
headway. After that short break I let the jib draw and set the wind
vane for home. . .about 110 degrees off the wind, waves on the
quarter. H'mm
Going more or less upwind I hadn't noticed the windvane having any
trouble handling the boat or complaining about being heavy on the
helm. It became immediately obvious that with the main so large
relative to the jib the boat was badly out of balance when reaching
and the windvane could not hold her at all in the gusts. Given that,
she would then over correct after the gust and looked fair to jibe
over at one point. I decided that hand steering might be a good idea
at that point and let the vane go off watch. That was a workout!
The tiller was very heavy and the boat REALLY wanted to round up in
the gusts. The third reef would have made the day just a rough but
pleasant sail. With only the second reef available I was in the
unenviable position of steering the car while a homicidal (suicidal?)
maniac who didn't like me had charge of the throttle. Well, I guess
it was glorious sailing, just a bit over my normal standard. We
weren't surfing continuously, probably only 5 or ten seconds out of
the minute, but it was enormously impressive when she'd suddenly
squirt ahead and everything would turn to foam all around us. . .I
was about to decide I liked the whole program when a noticeably
larger wave came into view astern. I hesitated then decided to luff
up into it a bit and ended up too late, broadside to as the wave
passed. . .perfectly gently. I was just congratulating myself and
starting to bear off when the REALLY large wave behind the first one
decided to break aboard full length of the port side. That was the
first solid water I've ever seen in the cockpit. . .might have been a
pan full. . .more than a cup anyway. I let go of the tiller, grabbed
the coaming and held on. The boat rounded up sharply and rolled down
heavily to starboard. As she started to recover I grabbed for the
tiller and yarded her head back off the wind and she took off
roaring. Gracious sakes.
Well, at that rate of speed it wasn't very long and we were back at
the harbor mouth, standing a bit more upright as we got in behind the
land, but still going like a horse over fences. The ferry was still
in her slip so we continued on across the fairway, cheated inside the
shoal marker 30 feet and scooted along the edge of the shoal, surfing
one last time well inside the harbor mouth as a wave broke in the
skinny water.
Sometime during the fun I'd knocked the skin off one knuckle on my
left hand and it was dripping watery blood all over the cockpit. And
me with a shockingly white new main to furl. I determined to pick up
my buoy under sail and get a bandage on the leak before even touching
the lovely new canvas. So where did the wind go? I had to roll out
a bit more of the jib to keep way on her until we reached the gap in
the hills and a gust knocked us half over again and we reached in
grand style up into the moorage and stopped. . .or drifted lazily
around. For the next bit I'd drift a while, trimming sails on both
sides of the boat, beating and reaching, getting to within a few
yards of the buoy and then losing way in a lull or involuntarily
tacking when the breeze changed. It wasn't prettily done, but
finally she was moored up chattering away at the dinghy about the
great things she'd done and then came the breeze back through the
anchorage and wanted to take her back to sea. I bandaged the knuckle
(a tiny little leak to have made so much blood), put the coat on the
sails and coiled down, put the cabin back together and went for a
walk in the park.
The breeze was only just over 30 knots reported ashore, and I suppose
the gusts might have been another 5 or so above that. I'll reeve off
the 3rd reef pendant Saturday morning if not before.
Ken Preston, Katia Sofia, Seattle area
stretched out with a series of gentle day sails. Sunday I came
fairly close to getting beaten up by a lousy local frontal passage
when I was just trying to admire my new sails. In the harbor it was
not really wild, a little gusty, so I just tied in one reef and left
the buoy with 3/4 of the jib showing. My blasted Irish hat blew
overboard as soon as I passed the ferry moorings and that gust
actually put the lee rail to (but not under) water. Good grief.
Anyway, by that time I figured it would be easier to go ahead and
clear the harbor and get the boat self steering before reefing
further. Not necessarily the correct conclusion, but I've been
getting pretty confident in the Vega lately. It was visibly rough
outside before I passed the right hand shoal and could come up on the
wind (southeasterly)and put the windvane to work. With the main just
luffing a bit (one reef) she was plunging quite hard into it and
bringing a lot of water on deck so I went downstairs and put on foul
weather gear and harness before going forward. . .just as well.
However, the view out the companion as I climbed back on deck was a
bit startling. . .lee rail and racing foam at face level. . .and the
boat was really bucking quite hard in the short breaking chop.
Anyway, I got on deck and got back to work. The new full length
battens in the top third of the main greatly reduced the sound and
fury of flogging when I slacked things off to put in the second reef
and the new rigging worked quite well. I used the halyard winch to
get a little extra on the reef pendant, coiled up and scooted back to
the cockpit to sheet in. Dang. We were still overpowered, heeling
more than I like and going quite hard through the water, probably
over 6 kn but I didn't get out the gps to see (knotmeter isn't
working just now). I rolled up about half the jib and admired the
effect of the foam filled luff. Still had a small wrinkle in the
bottom half of the sail though. . .I wonder if the forestay is too
slack? H'mm. Things to learn. At that point, two reefs and half
the jib more or less, we were a bit over powered but making really
quick way through the water upwind, being pushed around a good bit by
the chop. We don't really get "seas" in Puget Sound, but the chop
was pretty big. . .I'd guess perhaps 4' or a bit more on
average. . .with all the tops breaking at least a little and some
pretty vigorously.
And now the point of the story. I ordered 3 reefs and the new sail
came with them but they were positioned a little differently from my
old sail and I had to replace the longest reefing pendant and move
the other two each one step outboard. . .ergo, had to discard the
first pendant, put the second one in that hole, and the third pendant
into the second hole and I HADN'T YET ROVE OFF THE NEW 3RD. Hadn't
actually bought it in fact. Dang.
I learned several things for the next hour more or less. . .brought
way more water aboard than I ever had before, undoubtedly went a good
deal faster in the boat than ever before, decided I did NOT like beam
reaching when that badly over canvassed, so sailed about 70 degrees
off the wind on the outbound leg going really fast and slopping
occasional wave tops clear over onto the cabin top, though nothing
real came in the cockpit (you people who have filled the cockpit and
just enjoyed the day amaze me. . .I'd have been terrified I don't
doubt). Within about 40 minutes of reefing I concluded there was too
good a chance of bending, breaking or ripping something expensive or
ruining my own self image, so I tacked her around ALL THE WAY THROUGH
140 DEGREES. . .we had enough way on she never hesitated though we
hit a couple of waves pretty hard as we swung through the wind. I
kept the jib aback and let her jog along hove to for a minute and it
was delightful as usual. . .though we were still making a lot of
headway. After that short break I let the jib draw and set the wind
vane for home. . .about 110 degrees off the wind, waves on the
quarter. H'mm
Going more or less upwind I hadn't noticed the windvane having any
trouble handling the boat or complaining about being heavy on the
helm. It became immediately obvious that with the main so large
relative to the jib the boat was badly out of balance when reaching
and the windvane could not hold her at all in the gusts. Given that,
she would then over correct after the gust and looked fair to jibe
over at one point. I decided that hand steering might be a good idea
at that point and let the vane go off watch. That was a workout!
The tiller was very heavy and the boat REALLY wanted to round up in
the gusts. The third reef would have made the day just a rough but
pleasant sail. With only the second reef available I was in the
unenviable position of steering the car while a homicidal (suicidal?)
maniac who didn't like me had charge of the throttle. Well, I guess
it was glorious sailing, just a bit over my normal standard. We
weren't surfing continuously, probably only 5 or ten seconds out of
the minute, but it was enormously impressive when she'd suddenly
squirt ahead and everything would turn to foam all around us. . .I
was about to decide I liked the whole program when a noticeably
larger wave came into view astern. I hesitated then decided to luff
up into it a bit and ended up too late, broadside to as the wave
passed. . .perfectly gently. I was just congratulating myself and
starting to bear off when the REALLY large wave behind the first one
decided to break aboard full length of the port side. That was the
first solid water I've ever seen in the cockpit. . .might have been a
pan full. . .more than a cup anyway. I let go of the tiller, grabbed
the coaming and held on. The boat rounded up sharply and rolled down
heavily to starboard. As she started to recover I grabbed for the
tiller and yarded her head back off the wind and she took off
roaring. Gracious sakes.
Well, at that rate of speed it wasn't very long and we were back at
the harbor mouth, standing a bit more upright as we got in behind the
land, but still going like a horse over fences. The ferry was still
in her slip so we continued on across the fairway, cheated inside the
shoal marker 30 feet and scooted along the edge of the shoal, surfing
one last time well inside the harbor mouth as a wave broke in the
skinny water.
Sometime during the fun I'd knocked the skin off one knuckle on my
left hand and it was dripping watery blood all over the cockpit. And
me with a shockingly white new main to furl. I determined to pick up
my buoy under sail and get a bandage on the leak before even touching
the lovely new canvas. So where did the wind go? I had to roll out
a bit more of the jib to keep way on her until we reached the gap in
the hills and a gust knocked us half over again and we reached in
grand style up into the moorage and stopped. . .or drifted lazily
around. For the next bit I'd drift a while, trimming sails on both
sides of the boat, beating and reaching, getting to within a few
yards of the buoy and then losing way in a lull or involuntarily
tacking when the breeze changed. It wasn't prettily done, but
finally she was moored up chattering away at the dinghy about the
great things she'd done and then came the breeze back through the
anchorage and wanted to take her back to sea. I bandaged the knuckle
(a tiny little leak to have made so much blood), put the coat on the
sails and coiled down, put the cabin back together and went for a
walk in the park.
The breeze was only just over 30 knots reported ashore, and I suppose
the gusts might have been another 5 or so above that. I'll reeve off
the 3rd reef pendant Saturday morning if not before.
Ken Preston, Katia Sofia, Seattle area